Call Nurse Jenny by Maggie Ford Read Free Book Online

matter?’
    ‘Who says anything’s the matter? I’m fine. Couldn’t be better. I’ve got my future nicely cut and dried, no worries, nothing. Life’s grand. Just sit back and let my dear mother do the worrying for me, the arranging, the thinking. Who cares?’
    He cut off abruptly, stared down at his untouched drink as though unsure how it came to be there, then he grimaced and sucked in his breath, pushing the glass from him and stubbing out his cigarette.
    ‘Ye gods! Jenny – let’s get out of here.’
    Gathering up her coat, her handbag, the unsightly square box on its cord, while he paid the bill, she hurried after him, thankful that he seemed to be walking from the restaurant more steadily than she had dared to hope. But once outside on the pavement the air hit him and he swayed.
    She took his arm firmly. ‘You can’t drive back in this state.’
    ‘It’s only a mile.’
    ‘It’s so dark. You’ll have us hitting a lamppost. We could walk. I’ve got my torch. So long as we don’t collide with a wall of sandbags.’ She tried to make a joke of the sandbags surrounding the council offices. ‘You can get your car tomorrow. And you must clear your head before you get home.’
    ‘
Must
?’
    She realised she had probably sounded slightly domineering. His earlier words spoken against his mother’s efforts to sort out his future ought to have warned her. She hurried to repair the damage, giving a light laugh.
    ‘Your mother will hit the roof if she sees you. You’ll never hear the last of it.’
    ‘You can say that again.’ He chuckled too, his tenseness easing a little as, falling silent, he leaned on her, letting her guide him. Neither spoke as they negotiated the quiet crossroads under the railway bridge.
    It was darker than they had anticipated after the restaurant lights, dim as they had been. Not a chink of light shone anywhere. Jenny’s small torch, itself covered by black sticky paper with just two tiny holes cut in it, gave hardly a beam and they needed to walk slowly, cautiously, in case they bumped into something hard like a pillar box or a lamppost, none of them lit, all of them obsolete. The bowl of the sky these days was dead-black from horizon to horizon as no one in town had ever seen it; stars looked as large and bright as sequins and the Milky Way stood out like a solid path of frozen mist in the enveloping silence up there.
    ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Jenny breathed, glancing upwards in wonder at it as they felt their way along. Time stretched out in silence between them; she judged that soon they would come upon that unevenly built wall of sandbags round the council chambers, so she moved even slower. Suddenly Matthew came to an abrupt halt, dragging on her arm.
    ‘What is it?’
    She heard his sigh. ‘It’s … not been a very successful evening, has it?’
    There was a slur to his words which she tried to ignore and she attempted to make yet another joke. ‘My fault, or yours?’
    ‘Mine.’
    ‘You’ve not been the jolliest of people tonight,’ she admitted candidly.
    ‘And of course, you know why.’ Again that sarcastic ring, but at whom she did not know.
    ‘I don’t think I do.’
    ‘Yes you do. It’s what’s been hanging over my head these last few weeks. I know my mother means well, but she rather jumped the gun telling people her son was going to be an officer. Let her down, didn’t I? And now everyone thinks I’m scared to join up, yellow, because I’ve not made any move to do anything. I can see it in their faces. I can see it in yours.’
    ‘Not mine, Matthew! I don’t think that.’ But she did think that, had battled with her conscience, tried to ignore the thoughts that assailed her. It had to show in her face, in her voice, no matter how she tried to disguise it, even from herself, as she told herself that Matthew was no coward.
    She heard his explosive laugh. ‘There’s blind faith for you! Real true loyalty. No doubts at all.’
    He shrugged away